Spinning Out

by Lexi Ryan

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Other Titles by Lexi Ryan

  About SPINNING OUT

  Dedication

  Prologue: Mia

  Part I: After

  1. Mia

  2. Arrow

  3. Mia

  4. Arrow

  5. Mia

  6. Arrow

  7. Mia

  8. Arrow

  9. Mia

  10. Arrow

  Part II: Before

  11. Mia

  12. Arrow

  13. Mia

  Part III: After

  14. Mia

  15. Arrow

  16. Mia

  17. Arrow

  18. Mia

  19. Arrow

  Part IV: Before

  20. Arrow

  21. Mia

  22. Arrow

  23. Mia

  24. Arrow

  PART V: After

  25. Arrow

  26. Mia

  27. Arrow

  28. Mia

  29. Arrow

  30. Mia

  31. Arrow

  Part VI: Before

  32. Mia

  33. Arrow

  34. Mia

  35. Arrow

  36. Mia

  37. Arrow

  Part VII: After

  38. Mia

  39. Arrow

  40. Mia

  41. Arrow

  42. Mia

  43. Arrow

  44. Mia

  Part VIII: Before

  45. Arrow

  46. Mia

  47. Arrow

  48. Mia

  49. Arrow

  Part IX: After

  50. Arrow

  51. Mia

  52. Arrow

  53. Mia

  54. Arrow

  55. Mia

  56. Arrow

  57. Mia

  58. Arrow

  59. Mia

  60. Arrow

  61. Mia

  62. Arrow

  Rushing In

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Spinning Out Playlist

  Contact

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright Notice

  The Blackhawk Boys

  Spinning Out (Arrow’s story)

  Rushing In (Chris’s story)

  Going Under (Sebastian’s story)

  Falling Hard (Keegan’s story)

  In Too Deep (Mason’s story)

  Love Unbound

  If you enjoyed this book, you may also enjoy the books in Love Unbound, the linked series of books set in New Hope and about the characters readers have come to love.

  Splintered Hearts (A Love Unbound Series)

  Unbreak Me (Maggie’s story)

  Stolen Wishes: A Wish I May Prequel Novella (Will and Cally’s prequel)

  Wish I May (Will and Cally’s novel)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Splintered Hearts: The New Hope Trilogy

  Here and Now (A Love Unbound Series)

  Lost in Me (Hanna’s story begins)

  Fall to You (Hanna’s story continues)

  All for This (Hanna’s story concludes)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Here and Now: The Complete Series

  Reckless and Real (A Love Unbound Series)

  Something Wild (Liz and Sam’s story begins)

  Something Reckless (Liz and Sam’s story continues)

  Something Real (Liz and Sam’s story concludes)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Reckless and Real: The Complete Series

  Mended Hearts (A Love Unbound Series)

  Playing with Fire (Nix’s story)

  Holding Her Close (Janelle and Cade’s story)

  Hot Contemporary Romance

  Text Appeal

  Accidental Sex Goddess

  Decadence Creek Stories and Novellas

  Just One Night

  Just the Way You Are

  Once, the only thing that mattered to me was football—training, playing, and earning my place on the best team at every level. I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol, and pissing off anyone who tried to stop me. Now I’m suspended from the team, on house arrest, and forced to spend six months at home to get my shit together. The cherry on top of my fuckup sundae? Sleeping in the room next to mine is my best friend’s girl, Mia Mendez—the only woman I’ve ever loved and a reminder of everything I regret.

  I’m not sure if having Mia so close will be heaven or hell. She’s off-limits—and not just because she’s working for my dad. Her heart belongs to someone else. But since the accident that killed her brother and changed everything, she walks around like a zombie, shutting out her friends and ignoring her dreams. We’re both broken, numb, and stuck in limbo.

  Until I break my own rules and touch her.

  Until she saves me from my nightmares by climbing into my bed.

  Until the only thing I want more than having Mia for myself is to protect her from the truth.

  I can’t rewrite the past, but I refuse to leave her heart in the hands of fate. For this girl, I’d climb into the sky and rearrange the stars.

  THE BLACKHAWK BOYS, an edgy, sexy sports romance series from New York Times bestseller Lexi Ryan. Football. Secrets. Lies. Passion. These boys don’t play fair. Which Blackhawk Boy will steal your heart?

  Book 1 - SPINNING OUT (Arrow’s story)

  Book 2 - RUSHING IN (Christopher’s story)

  Book 3 - GOING UNDER (Sebastian’s story)

  Book 4 - FALLING HARD (Keegan’s story)

  Book 5 - IN TOO DEEP (Mason’s story)

  For Kai

  Before midnight. New Year’s Eve. Black sky. Black clouds. Headlights. New moon.

  My mother always told us that change happens at the new moon.

  They’re arguing. Brogan’s drunk—not himself. Nic’s pissed—too much himself.

  “Nobody raises his hand to my sister.” Nic spits in Brogan’s face, and Brogan swings. Then the sickening sound of fists connecting with flesh. My brother’s fists. My boyfriend’s. They’re going to kill each other.

  “Stop!” I beg, my voice like breaking glass. “Nic, just take me home.” Sleet pelts my face, coming at me the way the guys go at each other. I pace, my arms wrapped around myself, my fingers numb. It’s so dark out here, and the only light comes from the headlights of the boys’ cars, facing each other on the side of the road.

  “Get in the car,” Nic growls at me without taking his eyes from Brogan. It’s the third time he’s given the order, and I refused, as if my presence could keep them from hurting each other. This time I obey, climbing in and shutting the door behind me. It’s warmer in here without the sleet and relentless wind, but I can’t stop shaking. Cold. Scared. Fucking night from hell. I wait for my brother, but he doesn’t follow. He shoves Brogan into the street, and Brogan falls, then scrambles. Nic kicks him before he can get up.

  “Just take me home!” I scream. My stomach cramps, folds, convulses around itself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  I turn the key in the ignition and look at the clock as if it might be ticking down to the end of their ugly shouts and angry punches. 11:59. How is it still 11:59? Will this night never end?

  As if answering my mental plea, the clock ticks over, and I hear screeching tires.

  Black sky. Black clouds. Headlights. New moon.

  My mother always told us that change happens at the new moon. She was right.

  April, three and a half months after the accident

  “What is she doing here?” Arrow’s words are spoken in a hard whisper that crawls up the walls and under the wooden nursery door. They creep into my sanctuary and claw at my heart. The murmurs of
his stepmother’s reply float up behind the hate, but I can’t make them out.

  “You couldn’t find any-fucking-body else to play mom to your baby?” No more whispering. Words directed like knives intended to hurt us both—her for being an unfit mother by hiring a nanny, me because he wants me to know how unwelcome I am.

  The dull thud of toppled furniture—maybe a dining room chair, maybe an end table. Heavy footsteps. The echoing, house-shaking boom of a slamming door.

  I shift baby Katie in my arms and cross to the window. Between the slats of the wooden blinds, I watch Arrow. The sight of him climbing into his electric-blue Mustang GT steals my breath. The engine purrs, and he tears out of the driveway.

  Breathe, I remind myself. I close my eyes and focus on the cool air filling my lungs, the warmth of the newborn curled into my body, the hum of the ceiling fan almost whispering the reminder: Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Gwen’s heels click on the hardwood planks of the hall, and I know she’s heading my way before she knocks.

  “Come in.”

  She opens the door slowly and steps into the room, bringing with her a cloud of expensive perfume and a reminder of my anxieties. She looks every bit the part of the stereotypical trophy wife—from her blond hair and perfect body to the single-carat diamond studs in each ear.

  At twenty-six, Gwen is only six years older than me, five years older than her stepson. She married Arrow’s father a convenient eight months before she gave birth to Katie, making her husband a father to his second child at the age of sixty-five. I don’t judge her for marrying Mr. Woodison, a man nearly forty years her senior. We all have our reasons for taking paths for which the world will judge us.

  “I’m guessing you heard that,” she says.

  I nod and tell my racing heart to steady. If she asks me to leave, I don’t know what I’ll do. Get a job at Walmart, maybe? The pay cut would be a bitch, but it would be something. Of course, then there’d be no school next fall, and the fact that Mr. Woodison pays me enough that I’ll be able to afford my tuition at Blackhawk Hills U is definitely the sweetest part of this arrangement.

  “He hates you so much,” she says. The words hit me with the dull force of a blow to the heart. “Why?”

  Because I destroyed everything. “I don’t know.”

  She extends her arms for Katie, and I hesitate. Seeing Arrow again—even for only the ten seconds it took him to climb into his car—has left me feeling ugly and guilty. The baby’s warmth is a soothing balm to my battered conscience, but I hand her over.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about him,” Gwen says. “But if that’s a taste of what’s to come, it’s going to be a long six months.” She shakes her head and peers between the slats in the blinds. “I can’t say that I’m happy with him serving his sentence here, but it wasn’t my choice to make.”

  “He’s not that bad.” When she cuts her gaze to me, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. If I’m going to keep my job with the Woodisons while Arrow is home, I need Gwen as my ally.

  With a sigh, she releases the blinds and turns back to me. “I won’t live in a house with you two at each other’s throats. So as long as I’m stuck with him here, you’re going to have to fix it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Whatever is wrong between you and Arrow. Fix it. Or I’ll have to find someone else to help me with Katie and the house.”

  My heart plummets, and I reach out and grab the edge of the crib. “I’ll talk to him.” Not that talking will help. The best thing I can do for Arrow is avoid him. He won’t be so angry about me being here if he doesn’t have to look at my face.

  “Between you and me,” Gwen says, her lips curling into a perfectly painted snarl, “I’m hoping he’ll slip up and start using again. I’d rather see his spoiled ass spend the next six months in jail than have him under my roof.”

  “Start using again.” I never thought those words would be connected to Arrow, and hearing them is a slap in the face. Because Gwen might be clueless, but everyone else in this town knows why Arrow’s life spun out of control this semester, and anyone who’s honest knows I’m to blame. I wasn’t driving the car. I wasn’t throwing the punches. But I was the catalyst. If I’d stayed home that night . . .

  I keep my mouth shut, and I’m rewarded with a smile as Gwen hands Katie back to me.

  Fix it. A simple command delivered by a woman who’s grown accustomed to having her demands met. Only she doesn’t know she’s asking for the impossible.

  No one can fix this.

  The house is dark and quiet when I get home. Maybe everyone is sleeping, but that’s unlikely. At eleven, Dad’s probably drinking his first scotch. Maybe screwing his nubile young wife.

  And Mia? Is she sleeping? Studying? Maybe she’s rocking the baby to sleep and humming a lullaby.

  I climb the stairs and head straight to my room, each step feeling like another click of the invisible shackles of my house-arrest sentence. Tonight was my last night of freedom, and I spent it sitting in my car alone by the lake. Because apparently I’m a fucking masochist who wanted to wallow in his memories for a while. As if having her in the room next to mine for the next six months isn’t going to be reminder enough.

  I can’t decide if her nearness is a gift or a curse—if seeing her in the hall and catching her scent will be heaven or hell.

  Pausing at the door to Mia’s room, I press my palm to the wood. I swear my pulse triples at the thought of her on the other side.

  “Wrong door.”

  I spin around at the sound of her voice and find myself face to face with Mia Mendez, my stepmother’s goddamn nanny, my best friend’s girl, and a reminder of everything I regret.

  Her dark hair is piled in a sloppy knot on top of her head, and soft tendrils curl at the base of her neck. She’s wearing some sort of oversized, wide-necked T-shirt that’s slipped off one shoulder, exposing a dusting of freckles I know too damn well continue down to her bra line. Her feet are bare, her toenails painted pink, and her legs . . . Christ.

  She swallows and stares at my chest, like she can’t look me in the eye anymore. Join the fucking club. “That one’s mine,” she says softly.

  “Yours?”

  Her head bobs as she nods, and anger flares in my stomach, a hot flash over the lust that sucker-punched me the second she appeared. She’s ashamed of me. Or disgusted. It would only be worse if she had any idea what being this close to her does to me. “This isn’t your room,” I say. “It’s just where you’re staying while you work.”

  She lets out a breath and shifts her gaze to the door. “Whatever.”

  I give her another once-over, all the while telling myself the ugliest lies I can about her. Anger is so much easier to deal with than this soul-stealing desire. No. Desire would be easy. It’s basic. Practically juvenile compared to what I feel for Mia. This is something else. Something more. “You make a habit out of walking around my dad’s house like this?”

  She arches a brow. “Like what?”

  I shift my gaze down her torso and let it linger on her thighs just below the hem of her cotton sleep shorts. “Half naked?”

  Shaking her head, she pushes past me and into her room. The shorts shift with each step, and I simultaneously wish they were longer and pray they might become shorter. Because this—the view of the caramel skin at the back of her thighs and the memory of how she whimpered when I rolled her onto her stomach and put my mouth there—this, without the gratification of seeing the curve at the bottom of her ass. This nightmare my life has become—having her so close and knowing she can’t ever be mine. This isn’t heaven or hell. It’s fucking purgatory.

  She nudges the door closed, but I catch it before it latches and push into the room. Coming in here is impulsive and foolish, but the instinct to get closer to Mia has been there since the day I first looked into her big brown eyes. Some things never change, even if we wish they would.

  She throws up her hands. �
��Sure. Come on in. Make yourself at home.” She gives me her back and heads over to the basket of unfolded laundry sitting on the bed. The room is tidy, and except for the stack of books on the dresser and the laundry on the bed, it’s not much different from how it looked when it was the guest room. You’d think she’d decorate—put a poster on the walls or pictures of her and Brogan on the nightstand—something.

  “Did you need something?” she asks, as I close the distance between us.

  “I don’t like you being here.” Part of me hopes she’ll understand why I have to say it. I want her to know me well enough to see through my bullshit. I’m only trying to convince myself it’s true. But she flinches at the words, and I feel like the asshole I am.

  “I’m here to watch Katie. It’s not for you to like or not like. It’s my job.” Not bothering to look at me as she speaks, she takes a new item of clothing from the laundry basket.

  I snatch it from her hands. Red lace and spaghetti straps—there isn’t much to it. “Watch Katie?” I hold the garment by the straps for inspection. “Maybe you’re being more than the stand-in mom. Maybe you’re also the stand-in screw.”

  She swings, her open palm coming toward my face, and I don’t bother to duck. I let it land and relish the sting of her fingers connecting with my skin. I’ve been numb for months, but it’s no surprise that Mia’s the first to make me feel something.

  When I open my eyes, her nostrils are flared. Her chest rises and falls with her heavy breaths.

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she says in a sharp whisper. “Stay away from me.”

  “I’m the guy you fucked behind your boyfriend’s back.” I scrape my gaze down her body and back up before throwing the red lace nightie on the bed. “And probably the one you think about when you wear that piece of trash.”

  Her breath leaves her in a rush, and she bends at the waist as if I threw a punch to the gut.

  The words I’m sorry sit heavily at the back of my throat, choking me. I want to bury my face in her chest and whimper my apologies like a four-year-old, but she wouldn’t understand what I was apologizing for, and I don’t deserve her forgiveness. I’ll say whatever horrible things I must to make sure she never tries to give it to me.